Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[scott holder]

From a gaming standpoint, I had a blast. I need to thank Mark Stone again for
umping the Theme. And I'm also glad Mark is bowing to Alex's wishes about
Mongols next year. I took Asiatic Early Successor because I like the characters
in the army, not because I needed to power game the tourney. Some of us play in
tourneys for a variety of reasons, hence our army choice, so GO MONGOLS!!!!!!
My three theme games were against Seleucids, Mark Hissam, Ewan, Dan Woyke. I
ground out two wins at each end but turned my peltasts in such a way as to allow
Ewan to flank charge em--never recovered although one of his sub-generals was
close to going when we stopped. I simply had fun playing and not embarrassing
myself too much in the process.

From the umping standpoint, things went better than I expected. Thanks to
everybody who offered to float scales or not even play in case we couldn't work
out numbers. That would be Craig, Kelly, Sean, Jevon and Jon--maybe a couple of
others who I'm forgetting. Again, this is a *huge* help. I *hate* to play and
ump and for a decade plus now, we've *never* had odd numbers.

Much of my umping duties come down to being the "Grand Arbiter Of All Things
Geometric" and "Chief Judger of Distances". Folks don't agree if something's in
reach. If something is that close (The Chris Damour Ploy), then I usually don't
allow it but I always took great pains to measure. I also had to wheel stuff
and see if/where it would hit. The "pushback" (a Mark Stone phrase which
describes the amount of "talk back" an ump gets from a player) was very very
very mild in all these instances. Players simply wanted an impartial (and as
the weekend ground on, less brain dead) person to say "yes, your Companions can
hit that pike block in the flank" and so on.

One thing I took great pains to do, mainly to try and stop criticism from some
quarters that I don't know the rules, is to go thru each "ruling" step by step,
connect the dots, pedantically *read* the rules to the players in question and
then state my conclusion.....with the offer that if they could find something
else, I'd be more than glad to consider it. So if you heard me going thru this
process again and again, that's why. I wanted players to be sure that I knew
wtf I was talking about in as graphic a way as I could demonstrate. I think
there was only one instance in the weekend that I couldn't find something and
had to rule on memory. And now I've forgotten wtf that was:( But I know I
got it right:):)

Mark has already mentioned one of the consistent issues that kept coming up,
gaps. Reread Mark's post on that. I find that players tend to want read into
the gap rules "more" than is there. One conversation I had with Rich Kroupa
during the last NICT round was on a gap the he thought was one and I didn't.
The rules state clearly that not every gap scenario can be listed. My comment
to Rich is one lifted from a Supreme Court justice's comments about porn. I
told Rich that I often can't specifically define a gap, but like porn, I know
one when I see one. I'm not sure that helped much but it is how I approach
gaps.

The other consistent question was the whole pivot/lineup/fit issue. Blessed be,
the rules are now *very* clear on this but it's an issue that continues to
mystify some players because you hafta work thru several subsections of the
rules, break it down, and then move on to the next pertinent subsection--trust
me, it's all there and works, you just have to know the process. So, I got a
*lot* of practice reading the rules to guys, walking them thru step by step how
the process works, and connecting the dots. I'd suggest everybody bone up on
those sections prior to your next tourney since it'll help you understand the
"coming to contact" mechanics and dynamics the result of which will be to call
me over less:):)

Mark also mentioned Dave M's brilliant, but totally bizarre pike move against
Frank. Shouldn't happen, it's one of those things that like gaps, is "porn"
when you see it but you can't really define it; but the move was clearly allowed
within the rules *right now*. Jon's been appraised of the situation and we'll
see where that goes.

The revised 12 and 14 helped on occasion but I did find one issue that wasn't
covered. And that was a good thing because it means the revised rulebook will
be that much better. We define "in terrain" much better now. However, we
hadn't defined how "in terrain" impacts weapon usage. For example, LTS "in"
woods. Clearly if you're "in" woods you can't use LTS but when is an element
"in" woods for purposes of weapon usage? So, Hcon was worth it if for nothing
else than to find that little, but important, piece of the puzzle. Basically,
if any part of the element is in the limiting terrain in question, then you
can't use the weapon if it's prohibited. Thus, a column of LTS-armed foot
exiting from woods, if the head of the column clears the woods but that lead
element's tail is still in the woods when it enters combat, tough, no LTS. If
all of the lead element (or a second element eligible to fight) is out of the
woods, then the LTS can fight. We'll have better wording and such once Jon
works this out in the revised rulebook but I wanted to give you an idea now,
hence why I bring this up.

Here's something that struck me over the weekend and it relates to trust. No,
not the whole "loaded dice" issue which while it comes up here on occasion,
doesn't seem to be the issue it can be elsewhere. No, what I was thinking about
were measuring sticks. Every time I went to a table, I'd simply pick up (or ask
for) a measuring stick. Not once did I think "how accurate is this thing?" I
simply assumed that players make accurate measuring sticks. Obviously some
folks have very nice machine-tooled sticks and such--I can assume they're
accurate to a micromillimeter but it's also nice to know that somebody's
homemade stick is accurate enough for gaming purposes.

And this leads into playing aids. Man do we need playing aids. Anybody play
against Dick Hurchanik? He's got a simple triangle that helps figure out
wheels. Ewan has his machine-tooled measuring sticks in various distances. He
also has those wheel templates he trots out on occasion but they're tough to use
in many situations. Other folks have a 40p square with a "stick" stuck into it
so you can grab it from above and drop it into smallish spaces to measure. Many
people have variations of a measuring stick except that it's a small "slab"
that's 40 on one end, 80p on the other, with the transition coming at 120p of a
240p length. I have one in 25mm made by the Dallas guys and saw a number of
them made out of wood. I'd pay well for a comprehensive set of playing aids
like this--hell, I can't even think of the ones I'd find useful since clearly
other players are more creative about those kinds of things. I really should
try to list the nifty playing aids I see. And this doesn't even cover markers
and such that can work on the table. I'm not a big fan of all the bright color
coding or huge letters--to me this is a miniatures game and I'm drawn to it for
the visual appeal and thus, those things detract from it. Thus, if we had
little markers that blended in better, I'd buy em in a heartbeat. Jon might
have more to report on this at a later date. But sharing playing aid ideas, to
include perhaps simple powerpoint drawings of what you're talking about, could
be *very* helpful.

Finally, thanks to the adults who had kids playing, Mark brought his son Alex,
Derek his son Ty, and Greg Hauser his nephew Alex. I hope all three boys had a
good time--this is a daunting game to learn. I haven't forgotten what it was
like to be 15 and learning 5th edition. It's amazing I'm still at it:):)

scott